


The Sum of Its Parts

by sarcasticsra



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/pseuds/sarcasticsra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony go clothes-shopping. Tony really doesn't know what his life is sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Its Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the beta, Kat!

What the hell was his life sometimes?

Tony honestly didn’t know anymore. It had started out innocuously enough. He’d been complaining to Pepper that it actually, physically made him sad, seeing Steve in those horrible, high-waisted khaki pants and plaid shirts all the time, because seriously, it did, it was absolutely awful, that much wasted potential. She’d nodded sympathetically, even agreed that it was the biggest sartorial tragedy since the invention of the UGG, and then she’d smiled.

In retrospect, that probably should have been his first warning.

“You should take him shopping,” she’d said.

That had just made him laugh. “What is this, _Queer Eye for the Star-Spangled Guy_?” he’d asked, eyebrows lifting. “It can’t be. For one thing, I’m only half-qualified to be his Gay Best Friend, and for another, I’m just not very good at being non-threatening. I’d scare all the children, One Million Moms would be lining up around the block to protest me, it’d be a whole thing. ”

Pepper had only smiled more widely, leaning in and meeting his gaze, before schooling her features into an impassive mask. “You need to do the world a favor, Tony,” she’d said, trying to affect a solemn tone and mostly succeeding, although the effect was somewhat ruined by the amusement in her eyes. “Or at least the part of the world that’s attracted to men. Introduce Steve Rogers to denim. _Tight_ denim.”

And, okay, put like that, it had seemed like the greatest idea ever in the history of great ideas. Hell, it had seemed like a _duty_ , and sure, Tony had never really been one much for duty, but he _had_ always been one for making exceptions for himself whenever it suited him.

Now here he was, in a department store, about to start shopping for clothes…with _Captain freaking America._

The thought bore repeating: what the hell was his life sometimes?

“Gosh,” Steve said next to him, looking a little like he had no idea where to start. Tony could understand that, given all the options in front of them. It was easy to pick one thing out of two options. Picking one thing out of a hundred options, on the other hand, tended to make people throw up their hands in frustration.

This was generally why he’d never given much thought to that whole _picking one thing_ rule. It was much easier to just take it _all_.

A salesperson zeroed in on them, a young guy with stylized dark brown hair and the kind of trendy outfit that had probably cost more than all of Steve’s current clothes combined. “Hi there,” he said, sounding genuinely friendly. “Is there anything I can help you with today?” The quick onceover he gave Steve suggested he was thinking of a few specific things that he’d like to _help him with_ that weren’t strictly shopping-related.

Tony smirked. Steve, of course, didn’t even notice.

“Let’s start with the jeans, huh, Cap?” he said, and Steve nodded.

“Could you show us where they are, uh,” he glanced at the guy’s nametag, “Mark?” Steve gave him a shy smile, one full of warmth. “Please?”

“ _Absolutely_ ,” said Mark, more enthusiastically than Tony was willing to bet he generally got about the prospect of selling pants. “This way. Follow me.”

Then again, Tony thought, as Mark led them to the correct section, this was what Steve’s ass looked like in khakis that were at least sixty years out of date. In jeans, it’d probably be a goddamned _revelation_. The enthusiasm definitely made sense.

“Would you like me to show you a few of our popular styles?” he asked. “I can think of several that would flatter you.”

Tony smirked again. He and Mark clearly had the same goal in mind, re: getting Steve into at least one pair of tight-fitting jeans. That worked in his favor. “Sounds good,” he said, and Mark smiled at him almost gratefully. “Actually, do you have any friends? Steve here is a little…behind the times, fashion-wise.” That officially won the award for Biggest Understatement of the Day. (He’d say the week, but just two days ago Bruce had taken one look at the plans for Tony’s latest prototype and declared him mildly insane. _Mildly_. As if.) “We’re trying to get him up to date, and trust me, this is going to be a _project_. Someone’s going to write a paper about it. There’s going to be a presentation, PowerPoint and everything. I say it calls for backup.”

“Tony, come on,” said Steve. “Do you really think that’s necessary? We can’t monopolize their time; that’s rude.” He gave Mark an apologetic smile.

Mark, for his part, was giving Steve the kind of look previously reserved for the sight of a bunch of kittens on a Roomba. Tony could practically see the comic book thought bubble above his head with the words _you are adorable_ inscribed in clear, black print. “It’s no trouble at all, sir,” he said, genuinely. “We’re here to help.” He smiled slightly more deviously at Tony. “I’ll go call in some reinforcements.”

Tony grinned, lightly clapping his hands together and steepling his fingers. He vaguely wondered if the gesture made him look like a supervillain. Probably, with the goatee. “Excellent.”

\---

“God bless America,” muttered Kelsie, one of the other salespeople Mark had rounded up, under her breath. Given that Steve had just come out of the dressing room wearing a tightly-fitted shirt and jeans slung low on his hips, Tony had to agree.

(Mark hadn’t recognized them, he’d quickly learned. Kelsie, on the other hand, had known immediately who he was, and had figured out Steve’s identity in quick succession. Tony had to give her credit for being pretty subtle about it.)

He smirked at her. She flushed a little, saying, “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologize for being right. That’s kind of a thing with me.”

She grinned.

“What do you think?” Steve asked them all, slightly bashfully.

Another one of the salespeople—Jasmine—gave him a bright smile. “They look great. How do they feel?”

“Good, actually,” said Steve, thoughtful. “Not too tight.”

As Steve turned around to look at himself in the mirrors, Tony noticed that ‘not too tight’ in this instance would still probably stop traffic.

When Mark and the last salesperson he’d conscripted—Brianna—walked back over, several shirts and other types of pants in hand, Mark took one look at Steve and almost ran into a display table; Brianna, Jasmine, and Kelsie tried valiantly not to laugh.

“I think those are a yes,” Tony said, dryly. “You almost caused a minor casualty.”

Steve glanced over at Mark, who had mostly regained his composure, except for the way he avoided Steve’s eyes as he handed over a new set of clothes for him to try on. Steve only smiled at him, though. “Thanks,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Mark, ears tinged red.

“It’s okay,” Steve assured him. “This really looks good?”

“Honestly?” Mark asked, and Steve nodded earnestly. “I think you could make an empty potato sack look good.”

Steve blushed. “Thanks,” he said. “I mean, you obviously know what you’re doing.” He glanced down at Mark’s own expertly-assembled outfit, and Mark grinned at him, and that was when Tony realized what, exactly, he was seeing.

Steve Rogers was _flirting_. With a _guy_.

_What the hell was his life sometimes?_

He needed to share this with someone, if only to be able to deal with it. Weird-as-fuck situations like this just weren’t the kind of thing he could handle by himself.

Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket, texting Bruce. He’d get it. He’d freak out with him. _Send help. Obviously stuck in the Twilight Zone. Steve fucking-straight-as-an-arrow Rogers is flirting with our salesdude! Emphasis on *dude*, here, what the hell?_

Bruce texted back a few moments later, only one word: _Jealous?_

Traitor. _I expect that kind of disloyalty from Pepper, big man. Not you._

_Pepper says she loves you too._

It figured. Of course they were conspiring against him.

Anyway, it wasn’t like he couldn’t see the appeal. Mark was pretty, slim enough that he could probably pull off _skinny jeans_ , for God’s sake, plus had an artistically tousled hairstyle that actually worked for him instead of making him look like a douchebag. Tony surreptitiously snapped a picture and sent it to Bruce. _At least Cap’s got good taste._

The reply was almost immediate: _Narcissist._

Tony frowned at his phone. That was true, of course, but generally he liked to earn it. _If you say that now, it takes away from all the times where it’s actually appropriate._

 _Oh, it’s appropriate._ Attached was a picture of him twenty years ago, which—well, damn, yeah, now he got it. Update the wardrobe and add a scarf and he and Mark could’ve been brothers. Huh.

But, wait, what the hell, where had Bruce gotten—Pepper. That picture had to be Pepper’s doing.

He really needed to keep those two away from each other. They got along way too well. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were both secretly _evil._

“It’s harmless, just for the record,” said a voice, and Tony glanced up to see Kelsie looking at him. “Mark’s got a boyfriend. He’s just an incorrigible flirt, and, well, we all have eyes…”

It occurred to Tony that she must have taken his frown in an entirely different context. Just the idea made him laugh. “Wow, thanks. That’s probably the only time anyone has ever assumed _I’m_ going to be the Stop Having Fun Guy. There’s a first I never thought I’d see.”

She smiled, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry. I just didn’t want you to think Mark was trying to steal your boyfriend or anything ridiculous like that.”

“We’re not going steady,” Tony said, grinning, and okay, there was a mental image: Steve, the All-American high school athlete, giving him his letterman jacket and calling him his ‘best guy’. There was a whole set of tangentially related mental images involving bleachers and the backseat of a classic car, too. Yeah, that had potential. “Wait, you know who we are,” he said, the thought interrupting before he could get too lost down that particular path. “You know who we are, and you still just called him my boyfriend?”

“Superheroes can be queer too,” she said promptly, and smiled. “Besides, you check out his ass every time he turns around, he only decides yes on an outfit after you say you like it, and right now he’s blushing and telling Mark that he really likes his hair,” she added, shrugging. “I’m not sure what about this situation I’m supposed to interpret as particularly heterosexual.”

“Touché,” he said, laughing, because it was completely true. They were being pretty gay right now. Impressively so, actually.

He texted Bruce again. _Steve and I are setting off gaydars left and right. Who knew hanging around Captain America would actually make me seem *less* straight?_

Bruce’s answering text was going to be his Exhibit A the next time someone expressed surprise about the fact that they were friends:

_The whole is gayer than the sum of its parts._

\---

Steve carried a truly ridiculous number of bags out to the waiting car, not even letting any of the salespeople (or Happy) help, because apparently he was the human equivalent of a pack mule.

“They helped us so much already,” said Steve, when Tony asked about this. “I can carry a few bags.”

“A few bags is one thing,” said Tony. “That’s about ten times ‘a few.’”

“It’s no trouble,” Steve insisted, so Tony let him coordinate with Happy on how to get them all in the trunk of the car.

A few minutes later, they were headed back to the Tower. “So that was An Event,” Tony said, and glanced at Steve out of the corner of his eye. “Did you get a number?”

That had totally been casual, right?

Steve frowned at him. “A number?”

“From the kid. The one you were getting all buddy-buddy with. Mark?”

“Oh,” said Steve. “No. He has a boyfriend. Anyway, he’s kind of young for me, don’t you think?”

“Uh, technically, _everyone_ is kind of young for you, _Capsicle_.”

Steve made a face. “You promised not to call me that anymore.”

“Just making a point.” He paused. “So. Guys, huh? I have to tell you, I did _not_ see that coming.”

“Yeah.” He looked at him. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

Tony couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Seriously?”

“I just noticed you seemed a little…off, earlier, when I was talking to Mark.”

“That was only because I was surprised, and then when I texted Bruce, he decided to be a traitor.”

“Oh? What’d he say?”

Tony considered him for a moment, then decided, _what the hell_. “He asked if I was jealous.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, smiling a little. “Were you?”

“I don’t really _do_ jealous, at least not seriously,” Tony said, and was it possible that Steve looked _disappointed_? He continued on: “I might have been a little wounded, though. I mean, come on now, I’ve been flirting with you for months, and nothing. Was it the scarf, or do you just like ‘em young and bendy?”

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve said, flushing red. “I never thought you were being serious.”

“Well, I wasn’t, really,” he said, shrugging, “but that doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it.”

Steve smiled at him again, more widely this time, and then they were just looking at each other for a long moment. Tony was about to break the silence when he suddenly found himself being kissed, firmly and heatedly.

By _Captain freaking America_.

Tony kissed back enthusiastically, and they shifted to the point where they were actually kind of making out in the car, which fuck if that didn’t bring back that mental image from earlier. When they broke apart, the first thing out of his mouth was actually, “Is it too soon to ask if you’re into roleplay?”

Fortunately, Steve only laughed, and then he kissed him again.

Seriously, what the _hell_ was his life sometimes?

As he groaned into Steve’s mouth, straddling him in the spacious backseat, he realized he had his answer:

Pretty fucking awesome.


End file.
